


Silk Suit

by DunkMeToHell



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: CONVERSATIONS ARE BACK IN TOWN, Fluff, Kayfabe Compliant, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Rare Pairings, Surprise Kissing, can i please write something that i can definitely tag like a reasonable human, tfw you gotta comfort that cute annoying guy because he's nervous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 19:03:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14002581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DunkMeToHell/pseuds/DunkMeToHell
Summary: Drew can pick out every fabric known to man. What he can't pick out is what's got Akira so worried.





	Silk Suit

Silk.

_Silk?_

For a minute, he has one of those rare moments of doubt, questioning his own judgment. True, Drew was no fashion expert, but he _was_ a connoisseur of business attire. He’d been around enough Men’s Warehouses to fill four strip malls, and he could tell polyester from blended cotton thirty feet away. Oftentimes he didn’t even need to see the suit; just hearing the muted shuffling of the pant legs—now was it a _swish_ or a _zwish?_ —could be enough to give a material away.

But _silk?_ That was too much.

Well, he could always sneak a quick feel, if he liked. Akira’s suit jacket is temptingly close, lying haphazardly thrown over one of the benches, just within grazing range of Drew’s fingertips. What’s more, Akira isn’t looking. He is distracted, grumbling to himself as he paces back and forth in front of a locker room door (there is a placard taped rather neatly to the surface: “Titus WW Regional Offices Headquarters”), hooking a finger occasionally at the neck of his shirt and tugging. He seems uneasy—far more uneasy than Drew remembers having ever seen him before.

For one moment, Akira looks down at his feet, contemplating the reflecting lights in the surface of his polished shoes, and Drew spots his chance. Quickly, discretely, he reaches out and strokes the surface of the jacket—

Not discrete enough. Like a jungle cat Akira’s ears perk up, and his head whips questioningly around in Drew’s direction. He spots his fingertips inching across the sleeve of his suit jacket, and he shoots Drew a questioning look. Drew stings pink. Slowly, eyes locked with Akira’s, he draws away from the crumpled jacket.

“Tozawa.” Drew regards him with a little nod. Akira merely curls his lip before rolling his eyes, returning to fidgeting with his necktie. Drew exhales softly.

There’s no mistaking it: it’s silk. Not even a wool blend; pure smooth, dimly shining silk. So he’d been right on that count—but Drew is still more confused than triumphant. Even letting alone when Akira came to own this suit, or who advised him to wear it (much too flashy for a business meeting), silk was a showy fabric, a fabric worn to impress people. And Akira was hardly one to care what others thought. Drew looks again to Akira, who stands plucking at the knot of his tie and scraping his shoes against itchy ankles.

It has to be a rather important meeting to get Akira Tozawa worked up like this.

“Ah—“ Drew and Akira both watch as the knot of the tie accidentally disintegrates in Akira’s twitching grip. He looks down on it like it’s a broken limb. “F...f...” Air blows from between Akira’s teeth as he twists and pulls at the ends, but it’s no use, and the long piece of cloth remains in a most un-necktied shape. Drew sees a bright red color wash over Akira’s face as he grits his teeth, hands trembling as he tries in vain to fix it, but it doesn’t work. Finally, with a harsh grip, he tears it from his shirt and throws it down flat on the floor. His foot is raised in preparation to stomp it, and he surely would if not for Drew rising up slowly from his bench. “Tozawa?”

Tozawa lifts his eyes, trembling slightly, up to Drew, who tries to look as unsympathetic as possible as his mouth presses into a flat, disapproving line. The red in Akira’s cheeks deepens—perhaps from shame?—as he slowly lowers his foot back down.

“Tozawa, this isn’t becoming behavior for a company representative,” Drew launches into it readily, switching immediately into the lecturing tone that never fails to produce rolled eyes, “now pick that tie up.”

Akira, however, doesn’t roll his eyes. In fact, he complies almost meekly, quickly bending and swiping up the discarded fabric from the floor. Drew frowns as Akira says nothing, just tries to twist the tie back into a proper knot again. He expected Akira to at least snap his teeth at him, but he instead he stands looking distant, face turned away from Drew as if he’s embarrassed by himself.

So something really _is_ bothering him.

Akira is standing before a mirror, transfixed by the task of trying to get the tie back under his shirt collar, when Drew seems to materialize standing behind his reflection. He jolts with surprise, and, hissing a breath out, looks up at Drew like he expects an additional, more thorough scolding. But instead, Drew reaches a hand out and swiftly plucks away the fabric from Akira’s clumsy grasp. Akira looks sharply offended. “Hey!”

“You look like a chimpanzee trying to solve a disentanglement puzzle,” Drew says simply, not looking at Akira’s face as he smooths out the creases of the tie (black with cool gray pinstripes; classically corporate). Akira bites his lower lip, and his posture grows stiff. If he were to pout any harder he’d stamp his feet.

“I don’t need help.”

“Incorrect, actually,” Drew says, still professional and cool as he turns Akira to face the mirror, “you _do_ require some assistance; you just don’t _want_ my help. Neck up, please.”

Akira’s neck stays where it is. “If I don’t want your help, then why are you doing it anyway?”

Not a bad question, but Drew doesn’t think too much of it now. “Because I can’t stand to see a silk suit go to waste. Now, neck up, please.”

Akira only looks up behind him at Drew questioningly. “How did you know it’s silk?” He asks. Drew smirks slightly with pride.

“I’m rather experienced with the business suit, Tozawa. I know every fabric. Now, neck?”

Akira finally complies, lifting up his neck. Drew quickly laces the tie below the fold of Akira’s collar, and immediately gets to work. Akira’s eyes dart down to Drew’s fingers, which briskly toss about the fabric, soon forming the beginnings of a very neat knot at the base of his throat. “Are you magic?”

Drew pushes down a crooked smile. “No, only experienced—there.” Drew gestures to the new knot proudly in the mirror, briefly adjusting it this way and that until it looks just right, perfectly straight below Akira’s neck—not too tight, not too loose. “Boardroom ready!”

Akira’s smile is obviously grateful as he stares down at Drew’s beautiful handiwork. “Thank you…” He says softly. Drew pretends not to care, looking down and inspecting his nails as if his cheeks aren’t the slightest bit pink.

“Don’t mention it,” he says, “it wasn’t like it was hard.” Quickly, Drew glances up briefly to gauge Akira’s reaction. Akira isn’t looking up anymore; instead, his eyes have fallen back down to his shoes, and a worried crease has crept back into his brow, just as he was before. Damn it. Drew can’t help but return the worried look, out the corner of his eye.

“Alright,” he says with a sigh, sitting back down on the bench, patting the space next to him, “what’s bothering you?”

Cautiously, Akira approaches the bench, but doesn’t bend to sit, merely staring down at the surface like he’s never seen wood before. Drew pats the grain again, this time more assertively. “Come on.” Tentatively, Akira finally settles into the seat. His feet are nervously, awkwardly tight together. There is a long pause before he finally speaks.

“How do you act in a business meeting?” Akira asks. Drew hums softly, running a hand through his hair and thinking.

“Keep your head on straight, good posture, speak clearly and fluently…” He runs down the list from his memory. “Always compliment the board members, also. Any chance you’ve hidden a gift basket somewhere on your person—no, no, never mind; silly question—”

“I mean,” Akira cuts in quickly, forcing Drew to jerk to a sudden stop, “what if it’s a meeting because you’re in… _trouble?_ ”

Now Drew’s eyes narrow. “Tozawa…why do you ask that?”

Akira shrinks down like a child, pulling up his legs and pressing his chin to his knees. “Titus is mad at me...” he says, forlornly.

“What on earth for?” Drew asks, head tilted questioningly. Akira avoids eye contact as he shrugs at the floor.

“I wasn’t going to meetings...” he says softly, twisting about his feet uncomfortably in his tight shoes, “and when I lost to Mark Andrews, he said I was embarrassing them.”

Drew blinks. “ _Titus_ said that?”

Akira raises his head up stiffly, lips pursed, expression serious. “ _Tozawa!_ ” He exclaims, in surprisingly good mimicry of O’Neil, “what’s the problem? This is not what we expect from you! This is not Titus Worldwide! We need to talk about this _seriously!_ ”

Drew laughs slightly at the imitation, but stops as quickly as he started once Akira’s expression falls again.

“He didn’t say he was embarrassed...” Akira confesses to his lap, “but I know what it means.”

Drew knows that, instinctively, he should want to tell Tozawa to deal with it, but he feels his brow creasing with worry, concern—indignation? Inwardly, he pauses over that one. Titus O’Neil may not have been _his_ boss, but he definitely was _a_ boss. Was this questioning authority?

Drew takes a soft breath in, and he moves as if he means to stand up and leave. “Well, Tozawa—“

Akira snaps up at the sound of his name, and immediately Drew feels like he’s been punctured. He knows he should mind his own business, should _want_ to stay out of it, but the look on Akira’s face is making that nearly impossible. He had wondered for so long what Akira would look like if he weren’t smiling like a screaming, bouncing simpleton at all hours of the day; apparently, the answer, all along, was located somewhere between “about to scream” and “about to cry”. Drew settles firmly back onto the bench, feeling something hot boiling up in his stomach. Is this anger?

“Are you really sure Titus is _angry_ with you?” He asks softly. Akira folds his arms tightly across his chest and rapidly nods.

“M-maybe he wants to…” Akira struggles, swishing the word around in his mouth before finally spitting it out, “ _fire_ me.”

“Fire you?” Drew repeats flatly. “Titus O’Neil wants to fire you for not winning matches? Is that what you’re saying?” Akira’s eyes are a bit dull as he nods at the floor, anxiously gnawing at the knuckle of his index finger.

Yep. Now Drew knows how he feels, as he looks down on Akira’s worried face; he’s _definitely_ angry—he can sense it bubbling up beneath his ribcage in pillars of steam. He wants to know just where in the hell Titus found the authority to be upset with Akira Tozawa—a former cruiserweight _champion_ —when he’d hardly won any matches in recent memory besides one or two in the last few weeks. Hell (he thinks with a snort), around this time just last year, Titus was the one who was trying to kiss up to the New Day, and they didn’t even want him around. He wasn’t quite within his right to judge Akira, even under his employ, for such a win rate—

A quick, nervous chuckle from Akira rouses Drew from his thoughts. Face flushed, he looks up to find Akira looking not to him, but slightly above and behind his head. Drew turns cautiously and finds a young woman, whom he recognizes as Ms. Brooke, peeking out the door into the locker room. In turn, she is not looking at Tozawa, but, instead, is peering down bewilderedly at Drew from over the edge of her horn-rimmed glasses. Now it’s Drew who laughs nervously as he withers under her gaze.

“G-good evening, Ms. Brooke!” He barely stammers out, adjusting his tie reflexively. “A fine business suit you’re wearing. A wool blend?”

Ms. Brooke barely even blinks at him before switching her gaze over to Akira. “Tozawa, Mr. O’Neil will be seeing you in ten minutes,” she says coolly. Akira barely nods at her words, swallowing audibly. Ms. Brooke barely nods back, and returns to the door—before she quite closes it, she pauses and turns back to Drew. “By the way, it’s polyester.”

Drew rests his face in his palm as the door clicks shut.

As he lifts his face, he expects a typical smug imp-grin from Akira, but finds his expression rather sympathetic. It’s kind of him, Drew thinks. At least they’re embarrassed together—

“Akira,” Drew asks hushedly, “did I say anything out loud a moment ago? Like, about Titus’ win rate?” Akira diverts his eyes to the side.

“Um. Couple of things.”

Drew gulps hard and nods quietly, hoping he doesn’t look too mortified. “Well, hopefully, I haven’t hurt your chances...”

Akira sighs gruffly, staring down at his hands folded between his knees. “You won’t hurt my chances. I’ve hurt my own chances enough.”

Drew lets out a disheartened breath as he watches Akira, who tries to shrink away until there is nothing left of him. It’s uncanny to see the man who makes such a point of having a violent, loud presence try to reduce himself to nothingness, try to disappear. Melancholy—unlike silk—suits Akira quite terribly.

Gently, Drew reaches over and claps a hand on Akira’s shoulder. “Akira, look at me?”

Akira slowly lifts his head to peer into Drew’s eyes, and is taken aback by the softness of his gaze.

“Why are you so hung up on whether or not you work for Titus?” Drew asks, with equal softness.

“What do you mean?” Akira’s eyes narrow questioningly.

“Your job with the company—I mean, _the_ company—isn’t hanging in the balance here. Whether or not Titus ‘wants’ you won’t affect the way you’re viewed on the roster.”

Akira blows a bit of air from between his teeth and scuffs the floor with the heel of his shoe. “That all doesn’t matter...” he grumbles. Drew sits up straighter.

“Why not?” He asks, his voice raising with an authoritative edge. “You’re talented and well-received by fans and critics alike—“

Somewhat encouragingly, Akira chuckles. It’s hard not to when Drew is talking like a Wikipedia article. Still, Drew feels himself smiling a bit as he watches Akira do the same...

“—So, you and I are in agreement that you don’t need Titus Worldwide to be successful, correct?” Drew is cautious to keep his voice low with this question. Akira considers it for a moment before answering with a shrug and a sideways nod. Drew claps his hands together. “Alright then. Then what is there to worry about?”

Akira’s face flickers suddenly from neutral, fresh from chuckling, back to a self-conscious frown. It takes Drew some restraint not to stamp his foot in frustration. Akira clears his throat. “No. I don’t need Titus to succeed.”

“Then what’s wrong?” Drew leans in, hoping he doesn’t sound too urgent. Akira stares into his eyes for a long moment—Drew feels as if he’s being searched, and perhaps he is. After all, it’s rare that Akira gives his feelings freely. He wants to be sure a space is safe before setting down a bit of his private mind.

“I want to succeed _for_ Titus,” Akira finally says, his voice quiet and slow. “I think—thought that Titus liked me. And...”

Now Akira makes a sound like a cough, and buries his face in his hand. On some forgotten instinct, Drew quickly bends closer and rests his palm on the small of Akira’s back. He’s startled to feel a shiver traveling through his body, and his eyes widen slightly. _Is he...?_

After a second, Akira registers Drew’s closeness, and quickly his spine becomes erect. He draws his hand from his face, which is again withdrawn, only merely pinched with worry, but there’s no mistaking the pinkness of his eyes, nor the wet trails down his cheeks. He sniffs hard.

“And I d-don’t think anybody else here likes me...”

Drew feels something deep inside of him crack. Without thinking, his arms find their way around Akira’s torso and drag him over to his body, joining them in a twisted, mismatched, slightly uncomfortable hug—but it’s enough. Akira’s sniffling abruptly stops as his hands rest awkwardly on Drew’s shoulders. There’s a pause.

“G...Gulak?” Akira timidly asks. He pauses again, fully expecting Drew to come to his senses, fling Akira from his body and straighten himself back into that same, tired, professional shape—and he’s fully surprised when Drew doesn’t. In fact, Drew stays put, pulling Akira encouragingly closer, saying nothing and biting his lip. His body is warm—strangely, comfortingly warm, and Akira finds himself slowly melting into its shape, hands sliding down Drew’s back, chin pressing into his shoulder. For a moment, Akira gets lost in it, and lets his eyes fall shut.

“Akira...” Drew is slow, hesitant, carefully trying to parse out what he means to say.

“Drew~...” Akira, however, speaks without thinking, still wrapped up in Drew’s warm touch. Drew bites his lip not to laugh at his sing-song voice, instead taking Akira’s shoulders and slowly pushing him at arms’ length. Their eyes meet.

“Akira Tozawa...” Drew begins, in such a cautious tone that Akira stirs to look at him, “I have been... _working_ with you for quite some time, now...during which we’ve gotten to know each other quite well...”

Akira nods sagely. “We’ve hit each other a lot,” he says. Drew presses his lips together.

“Yes, we have—”

“I broke your sign...” A look of panic settles into Akira’s eyes again. “Are you still mad that I broke your sign?”

“No, no, no,” Drew insists, affectionately ( _affectionately?_ ) rubbing at one of Akira’s shoulders. Akira, however, looks at Drew suspiciously, and he almost immediately gives in. “Well, I-I still wish you hadn’t done that. But it doesn’t really matter to me much anymore.”

Akira tips his head questioningly. “Why not?” Drew shrugs his shoulders.

“I made another sign. What you did was just a little thing, see? It didn’t ultimately bother me that much, in the long run…”

Drew struggles to relax as Akira’s eyes stay trained upon him, growing slowly more confused. “I don’t understand.”

Drew sighs a little bit. Truth be told, he’s not quite sure what he’s getting at either, but he’s sunk in too deep to turn around now.

“Y-your small mistakes ultimately don’t—”

“Well…” Akira squirms sheepishly as he speaks, “I meant to break your sign, but…” Drew sighs again.

“Right. Alright. Let me think.” Drew takes a long breath in and pauses to think, building what he wants to say brick by brick. “You vastly overestimate the duration of time people will be upset with you for the little things you’ve done in the past,” he finally says in one long breath. He looks down at Akira for his reaction.

Akira stares deeply into Drew’s eyes, and suddenly Drew feels the hairs along the back of his neck slowly stand upright. He’s never been able to get such a clear look into Akira’s eyes before, but now, upon close examination, they’re startling. Deep, dark brown, much like his own, and yet somehow completely different. Drew’s eyes have a dark quality beyond coloration, and often it scares him when he looks long into the mirror. But Akira’s eyes are _bright_ , down to their very depths, teeming with the same light and life and boundless energy that trails in with him every time he runs down the ramp. Drew is stunned that he’d never noticed it before.

In fact, it isn’t until Akira turns his head away to wipe his forehead that Drew realizes how intently he was staring into them. He can nearly feel the shade of pink that’s crawling into his cheeks.

“I still don’t get it…” Akira shakes his head at nothing in particular before turning back to Drew. “Don’t you hate me? I mean—” Akira puffs out his chest and puts on a big, pearly-toothed smile. “‘I’m not lying, no high flying!’” He exclaims in a proud tone that Drew vaguely recognizes as having been his own, punctuating his words with little pumps of his fist. Drew only half-manages to stifle his laughter in his shirt sleeve.

Akira can’t help but smile at that. He’s not _happy_ , per se, but Drew, moving mountains of stress on his shoulders, hadn’t been able to smile fully at all too recently. Akira felt something fizzing inside of his chest knowing that his dumb imitation had briefly uplifted him. It occurred to him only dimly that that was an odd thing to think about someone you hated…

Miraculously, when Drew lowers his arm from his face, his smile hasn’t fallen with it—and neither does Akira’s. For a minute, they’re stuck in a dumb, giggling loop, a smiling face smiling because of another, chuckling faintly at just the look of each other, a nice moment where the tension just slides off of their backs—

Only to fasten itself right back in place when Drew catches a look at the wall clock. “Oh, _shh-_ ucks,” he exclaims. Akira’s eyes follow his and he jumps in his skin. “Two minutes left…”

Drew frowns, resting a hand on Akira’s shoulder and gently squeezing. “Are you ready?”

Akira bites his lip, eyes slowly rolling around the room, as if the answer can be found somewhere in the walls, before glancing back up at Drew. “I just have a question,” he says, timidly.

“What’s that?” Drew leans in, incredibly eager. Akira takes a slow breath in through his nostrils, before casting his eyes up at Drew.

“Do _you_ like me?” Akira asks.

The question strikes Drew at his core like a freight train, and he sputters on its aftertaste before finally being able to ask, “I-I-I’m sorry, what?”

Akira knots his hands together shyly. “I just…have been wondering, lately,” he says in a voice so soft Drew can barely hear it. “I-I’ll feel better in there if I know I have a friend.”

Drew’s body is immediately possessed by some other force—that’s the only explanation for the way he unthinkingly reaches forward to Akira, taking his hands and clasping them within his own, gently pulling him over to his body.

“Yes, Tozawa,” a voice that is definitely Drew’s says, but without his conscious permission, “I think I like you.”

He can feel the tremor travel through Akira’s body, and vaguely, in the back of his mind, he realizes the implications of what he just said—but the look on Akira’s face makes it clear he doesn’t mind the closeness at all, eyelids slowly falling shut as he takes in the warmth of Drew’s large hands clasped around his smaller ones—hell, the warmth of Drew in general was soothing, pouring off his body and seeping in through Akira’s clothes. Suddenly, he doesn’t want to leave—for more reasons than his anxiety about the upcoming meeting—

“Tozawa?” Ms. Brooke’s placid face pokes out the door, and Akira and Drew both jolt at the interruption. Her face contorts with confusion as she takes in the odd lack of distance between the two of them, but she quickly shakes it off. “Mr. O’Neil is ready to see you.”

She leaves the door ajar as she steps back in, but Akira stays put, frozen with apprehension. His eyes dart wide up to Drew, as if he actually anticipates that he can do something about the situation, but Drew merely holds his arm and strokes his shoulder slowly.

“Akira…” Drew’s voice is gentle and low, aiming somewhere in the ballpark of calming, “don’t worry. Chin up. It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

“G-going to be okay,” Akira repeats shakily, nodding quickly. His hands are clenched in Drew’s starch white shirt, holding him within only a few inches’ reach for dear life. The expression on his face takes on a courageous bend, and Drew smirks proudly. But the two of them stay in place, holding on tightly, willing each other into calmness. _It’s going to be okay, I promise,_ repeating in both of their heads on echo as they stare at each other for what could be a moment our an hour.

Truth be told, not even they can tell who kissed the other first.

It’s quick at first, just a soft sort of peck on the lips, but it’s a seed watered by a need for reassurance and contact, and all of a sudden it’s blooming in a beautiful lack of control as they tug in each other closer by the ends of their ties, Drew’s hand on the back of Akira’s neck, barring his escape in the faint chance that he wants to run—but Akira wouldn’t run from him now, pulling Drew’s body closer like he wants to curl up into him forever just for the safety, for the warmth; he doesn’t even care that Drew’s hands are undoing the nice knot of the necktie they’d just arranged moments earlier, and Drew doesn’t care that he _swears_ his lower lip was bitten—

“ _Tozawa?_ ”

Akira and Drew toss themselves away from each other and attempt to quickly straighten out, as if Ms. Brooke hasn’t just seen them more or less crawling on each other.

While Drew tugs the creases out of his shirt sleeves, Akira looks down at the fabric hanging loosely, once again, around his neck. With hardly a moment’s thought, he draws it off and places it down into Drew’s hands with a confident smirk. Somehow, Drew finds it in himself to smirk back.

“Th-that was for luck, you know…” he breathes. Akira grins as he walks through the open door, past a bewildered Ms. Brooke.

“Right,” he nods, solemnly, “for luck.”

* * *

 

Sitting on the bench just outside, Drew listens to the noise coming from the meeting room like a radio drama. He assures himself, at first, that the volume is natural—O’Neil and Tozawa have been gifted with loud lungs. In the beginning, it’s just an exchange of greetings and some gusto, though Drew can sense that Akira “AH!”s with a bit less passion than usual.

It’s not until Apollo’s voice, for once striking just by its sensible contrast, breaks in that Drew presumes they get down to business. The noise levels curve down sharply into faint murmuring that Drew can’t quite make out. Somehow, this is much worse. Drew folds his legs over as he sits on the bench, listening anxiously to whatever the proceedings are, but finds there is nothing to understand. A small lump forms in his throat that won’t go away no matter how he swallows.

And then, there it is. Drew lifts his head higher and higher, almost leaning back with his ear pressed to the wall, just to be sure. Laughter—soft and faint, a little glimmer of light between gray clouds, but unmistakable. He’s only half-embarrassed by the relieved smile that breaks into his face when he hears the laughter again, bigger and brighter and more robust than before. But it isn’t until the third bout, where he recognizes a soft, hysteric, almost squeaking giggle—Akira’s laugh—that Drew finally feels the tension fly away from his shoulders.

There’s a final battle cry, a whole room resounding with a “ _WORLDWIIIIDE!_ ” so loud that Drew nearly tips off the bench, and Akira finally leaves the office back into the locker room—bouncing out, really. The smile on his face is so broad Drew could cry, feeling as though he hasn’t seen it in years. Akira is followed shortly out by Apollo and Titus, who flank him on either side to shake his hand and thank him for the time before taking their chaotic train outside. Ms. Brooke follows, eyes barely flickering up from the clipboard where she’s frantically scribbling as she breezes right past Drew and Akira. Then, they’re right back where they started, the two of them alone in the middle of the locker room, Drew on the bench, staring up at Akira before him.

Only now, the silk suit jacket is slung breezily over the shoulder of Akira, who beams at Drew in a way that contrasts sharply with the despondent gaze he casted over to him earlier.

“So?” Drew asks excitedly, standing up to take Akira’s hand for a fast handshake. “How did it go?”

Akira’s smile takes on a warm dimension. To Drew’s surprise, he grabs his hand, but rather than shake it, holds it close to his chest.

“He wants to keep me!” Akira exclaims. “We wanna restructure. I’ll have a tag partner now!”

At the words “tag partner”, Drew feels his throat grow inexplicably tight. “O-oh? Who is that?” He asks, cautiously. Akira shrugs his shoulders, a coy little smile on his lips.

“Dunno. But I’m excited to find out.”

“Ah.”

“But…” Akira takes a step closer to Drew slowly, and his smile turns into more of a smirk. “If I got to pick…”

“T-T-Toz-zawa-a?” Drew stutters, wide-eyed.

Akira’s smirk deepens as he looks into Drew’s large eyes. Drew takes a slow breath in, trapped by Akira’s stare, and feels his throat tighten again—but for entirely different reasons.

“Mmm…never mind,” Akira says playfully. “You couldn’t handle tagging with me.”

It takes a bit of restraint for Drew not to reply with “you wanna bet?”, but he bites off the remark as he realizes that his hand is still rather near Akira’s chest.

“Ah…T-Tozawa…” Drew says instead, scratching the back of his neck, “I...I just want to say that...I’m proud of you.”

The look on Akira’s face melts from smug to surprised, but the smile stays put. “Really?” He asks, softly. Drew nods vigorously, his hand clutching unconsciously tighter around Akira’s.

“I am...” Drew clears his throat, looking up and down Akira’s body before him. How could a man this small make him feel so nervous? He feels compelled to say something more. “I...l-love that suit, you know.” Again, Akira’s grin turns lopsided.

“Silk.”

“Oh-h, I know...” Drew bashfully looks down, picking at his own tie.

“Your suit is nice, too...” Akira says, and slowly takes the edge of Drew’s tie. Drew blushes.

“Really?”

Akira doesn’t answer Drew verbally, instead pulling him down for another kiss—just as warm and close to the last. Drew’s head tilts into Akira’s irresistible touch, and he’s mortified to feel himself whimper when Akira pulls away, smirking.

“Really.”

Drew’s eyes flicker up and down Akira, standing grinning in front of him, still clutching to his tie. Drew sighs softly, resignedly, trying to fight the smirk from his face as he slowly reaches out to take Akira’s lapel and draw him in. “Dammit...”

Akira giggles brightly, eyes falling shut as Drew brings him closer. “Smooth, aren’t I?” He coos softly, mockingly against Drew’s lips. Drew chuckles softly.

“Yeah...” Drew murmurs, slowly guiding his lips back to Akira’s. “Like silk.”

**Author's Note:**

> haha i started writing this before hideo and akira became a tag team so i had to slide a reference in real quick at the end


End file.
